Hallway of the Dead

Hallway of the Dead

Hallway of the Dead directors cut


We made this film back in June of 2009, this was a year long project which during my breaks I was writing, story boarding and ordering items on the internet. Just trying to buy things on Ebay was a pain in the ass, most of the time I lost bids to other jerks buying 16mm film cameras. I did get lucky and older  K-3 hand crank Russian movie camera from the 60's.

Now that I have the camera now I needed to get the 16mm fillm Kodak and that was also a bitch to get it coasted 160.00 including shipping . I lost bids for black & white film, because black and white will give me more of a chance to cheat with the blood effect and make up but no dice. I did 12 rolls of film, color film but at that point I didnt care I just wanted to have it. 

So I tested the camera, I had to download the manual book, I was expecting to say congratulations comrade for buying your K3. No it was just typical loading film into, check speed, ect ect. 

first thing I did was record my room and if you know anything about movie film this roll was only 100 feet which translate 2 minutes of film. So I'll use 10 rolls which is 20 minutes, cut and edit a 10-15 minute movie. You see being a former film student in the 90's digital was not respected at all. It look like shit, it look like your shooting a porno. Film made your movie protect look artistic, fancy, brave and film just looks better. That was the idea of using film was the risk factor from buying the roll, loading the roll in your camera, in a low lighting. Shooting the film and hoping it won't get over exposure. Taking it out of the camera, in a low light setting, then take it to get it develop  in your local film shop, IF they still develop film. Then waiting weeks and have it come back saying damage because some dumbass opening it seeing what's inside in a High lighting setting over expose your film, it's heart breaking, makes you angry and sad, I've been there one time with a project I made for film class. I still got a passing grade because my teacher was witness to my project. I don't think (what do you call them, now since they don't use film anymore) young movie students understand the disappoints it could bring but the triumph it make you feel. Here's a secret about film for low budget film makers, no matter how shitty your movie is film takes up a level. People watch your movie and say that sucked but it was shot on film. I did use 2 rolls on my family and friends recording them and took them to Costco film department and they also transfer to dvd.  I got it back watched it and loved it, perfect I said. 

It was showtime and I had over 20 actors show up to be zombies and victims, my wife was the make up artist. She was scared at hell thinking her make up wasn't going to be good at all. You see my wife studied special effects and making monster make up at the Buell theater in Colorado. She learned form the best and she had doubt about her awesome gifts. She made a 7 minute zombie face make up kit she came up with. There were suppose to be stage one zombies, which are new fresh corpse victims. 

In the day of the shoot only 12 people showed and not my main character either. I arrange everyone to be at a middle school which I rented for one day on a Saturday. I arrive at 10am to set up, food, story board, and scripts. at Noon only the 12 people got into make up, ate and were having fun. I was nervous, angry, and stress wondering where they hell is everyone else. Then I decided to say "fuck it" I'll rewrite the story and work with who I have. Then after that I checked my K3  and notice something wrong. I couldn't see through the lens it was foggy. I check the lens but no, I cleaned the  both lens and they were fine. I opened it and had to go in the K3 the internal glass cube which is the heart of the image to record onto film was foggy???? weeks later I took it to a camera store and had no explanation to how it was caused. Back to the movie shoot, I wanted to cry but I'm a man I wanted to punch the universe in the face. My wife happened to bring her digital sony cam. As they say the show must go on, I shoot it with the sony cam, I didn't write any dialog because I wanted to add just an rock opera music in the background. We filmed it and afterwards we went back to our home and celebrated with food and booze. I was an awesome feeling, I didn't like because It was against using digital and was bummed out. My wife edit the film for me and showed it one day at a party in front of our friends. Of course they applaud, happy, and cheerful. Now I uploaded onto to Youtube, I'm not asking for money I just want to show it to many people as possible. Please enjoy